Feliz Navidad y Feliz Ano

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone!



This photo is from our journey to Beijing, China in August, where all the family was together.

We celebrated Christmas 2008 and New Year's 2009 in La Paz, Baja Sur, Mexico with friends from Alameda, California (Doug and Carla Scott [Moondance] and Steve and Ana Hall [No Worries]) and from Portland, Oregon (Patsy Verhoeven [Talion] and Delphi and Mike Godsil [Trig]). There were lots of parties, excellent food, fireworks, games and fun...all good parts of the celebration. We missed the family...

Downwind Sailing

For some reason, our photographs just do not capture the nature of the sea. You must need a wide-angle lens, or maybe an action shot with sound to catch the full impact of the waves and wind!



Leaving Isla Danzante, we picked up weather and for the next three days enjoyed some serious sailing in a winter "norther" typical of the Sea of Cortez at this time of year. The winds were consistently 15 to 20 knots, and for several hours each day, 20 to 25 with gusts to 30.


The seas pick up wave strength and height as the winds come down the Sea, so by the time we got into Isla San Francisco on Friday, the 19th, we were seeing consistent 5 to 8 foot swells with a few 10-footers thrown in for good measure. Our boat usually goes about 5 knots per hour. At one point, Marv saw the knot meter reading 10.99 as we came down the front face of a big swell. For us, that's fast! We tried to take a picture...but it doesn't look like much! Trust us, we deserved the ibuprofen and sleep when we were successfully at anchor!

Honeymoon Cove

What a lovely spot! A tiny rock-lined cove on Isla Danzante, deep at the entrance then gradually shoaling. There's not a lot of room to swing around on the anchor, so we set a stern anchor in about 5 feet of water and our bow anchor 20 feet deep. Twenty knot winds came up in the night, but we rode them out easily. The rocks along shore provided excellent snorkeling and half-a-dozen porpoises entertained us with their leaping, diving, and tail-slapping antics. The eco-tour ship, National Geographic Seabird, anchored farther out in deep water and shared the entertainment with us.

Los Coronados

Another change we've noticed from last spring...the water is clearer around Los Coronados than it was before! If I remember correctly, we arrived here earlier this year just as the giant red squid were dying...and the water was very cloudy. This time, it was clear enough to see our anchor 15 feet below, comfortably buried in the sandy bottom.

Desert Flowers

One of the advantages of coming into the Sea at the end of the rainy season is enjoying the greenness of it all. Compared to last spring, the hills are covered with a blanket of green...grasses, flowers, new growth on the cacti and shrubs.







The flowers are stunning in their contrast to the rocks and dust. It is still clearly a desert area, so we appreciate the transient beauty of these fragile plants even more.

San Juanico

We left San Carlos on Sunday, December 14, and ended up in Bahia San Juanico the next day. Our "plan" was to go across the Sea. The wind led us to San Juanico, where we slept for a few hours, kayaked into the laguna, and went for a hike to find a geocache and to enjoy the desert flowers.

Geocaching in San Carlos

When you are at a marina for several weeks, there is usually plenty of time to explore the nearby area. Today we hiked the trail to the saddle between the two peaks of Tetakawi, the mountain peaks marking the entrance to San Carlos harbor. The trail starts at Km 15, with a meander through grass along the roadside until you settle on the one that will get you to the top. Then it’s a dry, dusty hike up in a stair-step fashion for half an hour or so, palo verde and cactus abound. The last one-third of the trail is steep and rugged (some Class 3 rock) and you would need equipment to climb the peaks themselves, so we settled for standing on the edge, feeling the exposure of a thousand foot drop to the sea below.




Our hiking companion, Chris from Nada Mas, had a car, so after our quadriceps-jarring descent, he drove us part way into the valley in search of the Cañon de Nacapule. We walked the last kilometer, finding two geocaches on the way, and entered the canyon about mid-afternoon. This time of year, the creek bed that flows through Nacapule is dry, but that only means the rock formations carved by rushing water in the wet season are more visible—and breathtaking. The whole canyon is exquisite—at the entrance, orange rock walls loom on both sides, patterned with swirls of rocks, niches and caves left by the volcanic activity centuries ago. We had no idea what the rocks all meant (where is Kat when you need her!?) but they were amazing. As we walked up the canyon, it became greener, narrower, wetter, and cooler. When it looked like there was no going further, we noticed a knotted rope snaked down a wet wall on our right and Ardy pulled herself up, hand-over-hand, to find that the trail went on, curving off to the left for another half mile or so and balancing itself precariously on ledges above deep, dark pools of water 20 feet below.




The search for our last geocache of the day took us back into San Carlos (we hitched a ride for a couple of miles, walked a couple more) and out past the San Carlos Country Club (yes, there is one, golf course included) to a new development tract and (finally!) Paco’s Hill. This was an open country hike, catching cholla spines on our shoes and carrying grass seed from one spot to another, until we found it on the ridge above the development. By the time we had walked the two miles back to the intersection that would take us to Marina Real, we were ready for a lift, quickly accommodated by a local driver who delivered us directly to our dock.

Hiking in the Gorge

Portland was beautiful. The hike in the Gorge challenging—the Gorge is one of the natural wonders of the world and should be on everyone’s list of “things to do…”



Miles (Grandson #1), here sporting Uncle Malcolm’s hand-knit strawberry cap, charmed everyone, as expected.

Thanksgiving in Portland

Traditions are important parts of the good life. For over thirty years, we have been getting together with friends from Seattle and San Francisco for a long weekend to celebrate Thanksgiving. Each year we would rotate to a different city—Seattle, then Portland, then SF, and back to Seattle. Once, in 1975, we broke bread in Walla Walla, WA. As we have moved around in the past 8 years, the location has changed again, with two years running in the Bay Area, Berkeley included in the mix. New people have joined the group, sometimes a large gathering of many friends who are local, sometimes two or three who come from farther away. Tom Bouye has become part of the family…Thanksgiving wouldn’t be the same without his warm smile and wry humor…not to mention his Scrabble acumen. This year we were fortunate to be welcomed by Dennis Mulvihill and Olivia Clark to their home in Portland. They live in a retro-early 60’s home with space and light that is perfect for a large gathering.




There is a life-cycle to the get-together, with people arriving (Malcolm picks up Philip, Liz, and Miles from the airport; Paul, Linda, and Nick unfold from the car and stretch after their 3 and a half hour drive from Seattle; Megan waits outside the Portland train station after her trip down from Seattle; Marv and Ardy take the MAX in from the airport and the bus down from Lloyd Center to the old Sellwood neighborhood; John and Leslie fly in from SF and settle in downtown); the day’s food preparation (Megan’s cranberry sauce and green beans, Paul’s kugel, Ardy and Malcolm’s pies, Leslie’s dolmas, Tom’s wine, Linda on the gravy and mashed potatoes, and Dennis and Olivia sorting it all out, coordinating work with full grace and hospitality). After dinner, the conversation continues over clean-up, board games, and computers, and computers, and computers.



Friday and Saturday are dedicated to hiking, walking, more games, more eating, more computers, reading and continued conversation. Maybe one or two football games find a place in there, too. People move from one conversation to another, stop to read, take time for a snack, there is lots of catching up to do. Sunday is the day people leave…carrying good wishes, excess calories, and promises to see each other soon—at the very latest, next Thanksgiving.